Post by darkstar on Feb 6, 2005 15:27:52 GMT
THE DOORS
The Legendary Band’s Appeal Remains Strong, The Music As Vital As Ever
By George Varga, Pop Music Critic
Sign On San Diego – Union Tribune May 19, 2000
The Doors’ continuing status as a pre eminent classic rock band both pleases and surprises Ray Manzarek, the fabled groups’ keyboardist from its inception in 1965 until it’s demise following lead singer Jim Morrison’s death in 1971.
“We knew we were good,” said Manzarek, who was instrumental in helping the Doors inspired musical Celebration Of The Lizard become a reality. “But we had no idea we would last into the next century.”<br>
There is plentiful evidence of the enduring appeal of this legendary four man band, who albums continue to sell strongly around the world, 29 years after the group disbanded. And that appeal clearly transcends generations.
The English band Bush peformed the Doors charged 1967 song Break On Through, for an encore at its UCSD concert last month. Fellow Brit group the Cure recorded a version of the Doors 1968 hit, Hello I Love You, while Echo and the Bunnymen recorded the Doors People Are Strange and had Manzarek co-produce one of it’s mid1980’s albums and perform with them at a Los Angeles concert.
Rock singers as varied as Pearl Jam’s Eddie Veder, Ian Astbury of the Cult, Billy Idol and INX’s now deceased Michael Hutchence all modeled themselves, to varying degrees, after Morrison, a charismatic vocalist, poet, and psychedelic shaman. And almost no other pop star who rose to fame in the 1960’s so thoroughly embodied that era’s sometimes fatal ethos of sex, drugs (including lots of alcohol) and rock ‘n’ roll.
Vedder inducted the Doors into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in 1993, when he also joined the band’s three surviving members to sing Morrison’s parts on Break On Through and Roadhouse Blues.
“I was letting the music take me,” Vedder said after his performance. “It was more about how my heart sounds than how my voice sounds.”<br>
Another Doors fan, Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan, cities the band as a major influence on his group’s 1991 debut album, Gish.”<br>
“I think that they captured sort of a darkness that is timeless, and I think that’s why their music continues to attract new fans and go on,” Corgan said recently.
“The fact they were attracted to the blues and (German opera and cabaret composer) Kurt Weill says a lot about where they were coming from. The Doors had their foot firmly stuck in the ground of tradition – not in a boring sense, but in a sense of soul and music’s representation of that.”<br>
“And there’s no killing the music. Simply put, their music has the timelessness of the blues. And the great thing about the Doors is that, while a lot of people at times considered them a bad teeny-bopper band, they are still popular.”<br>
Responding to Corgan, Manzarek said, “I think what Billy is talking about is the general perception musicians have today.”<br>
Does such a perception overlook other facets of Doors’ appeal?
“Well, what’s lost is the multi layered art of Jim Morrsion and the joy of the musicians, not just the darkness,” said Manzarek, who looks a decade or two younger than his 65 years.
“I mean, I’m not exactly sure how you can listen to Light My Fire and call it a dark song, other than the line; Our love becomes a funeral pyre. You see, the idea of death always accompanies a Doors song. It was just the nature of the times, and I think it was certainly inspired by the ingestion of certain psychedelic substances, which opened the doors of perception and (provided) you a glimpse of the eternal nature of life. And once you have seen the eternal, you know that death is always with you.”<br>
The Doors’ music blended rock, blues, pop, flamenco, Latin and more. But the band’s biggest inspiration was jazz. Witness the band’s penchant for extended improvisation and its use of the Miles Davis classic Milestones in the Doors’ Wild Child and Thelonious Monk’s Straight No Chaser in We Could Be So Good Together.
“The improvisation was virtually the main point of the Doors, the improvisation within the compositions,” says Manzarek. “And that, the Doors were like any jazz group, except we couldn’t play as well. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was wark!”<br>
And what about the obvious influence of jazz star Chet Baker on the ballad singing style of Morrison, who was the son of a US Naval Officer and a one time Coronado resident?
“I always though of us as an extension of Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan and that whole West Coast cool (-jazz) thing, and as the Doors being the Modern jazz Quartet of rock, if I may be so pompous. And we took this cool jazz thing and added a Latin thing to it, because we were in Southern California,” Manzarek said.
He and Morrison both earned degrees from UCLA. The keyboardist is now completing work on his directorial debut, and independent feature named after the Doors song Love Her Madly. He believes Morrison would share his excitement about Celebration of the Lizard, which he and Joel Lipman, the musical’s creator and writer, spent the last decade getting off the ground.
“The Doors had always talked about theatrical pieces, mixed media presentations, the magic theatre, if you will,” said Manzarek, who dismisses Oliver Stone’s 1991 film. The Doors as “a complete travesty.”<br>
Source: www.sandiegocitysearch .com/E/G/SANCA/0000/13/92
The Legendary Band’s Appeal Remains Strong, The Music As Vital As Ever
By George Varga, Pop Music Critic
Sign On San Diego – Union Tribune May 19, 2000
The Doors’ continuing status as a pre eminent classic rock band both pleases and surprises Ray Manzarek, the fabled groups’ keyboardist from its inception in 1965 until it’s demise following lead singer Jim Morrison’s death in 1971.
“We knew we were good,” said Manzarek, who was instrumental in helping the Doors inspired musical Celebration Of The Lizard become a reality. “But we had no idea we would last into the next century.”<br>
There is plentiful evidence of the enduring appeal of this legendary four man band, who albums continue to sell strongly around the world, 29 years after the group disbanded. And that appeal clearly transcends generations.
The English band Bush peformed the Doors charged 1967 song Break On Through, for an encore at its UCSD concert last month. Fellow Brit group the Cure recorded a version of the Doors 1968 hit, Hello I Love You, while Echo and the Bunnymen recorded the Doors People Are Strange and had Manzarek co-produce one of it’s mid1980’s albums and perform with them at a Los Angeles concert.
Rock singers as varied as Pearl Jam’s Eddie Veder, Ian Astbury of the Cult, Billy Idol and INX’s now deceased Michael Hutchence all modeled themselves, to varying degrees, after Morrison, a charismatic vocalist, poet, and psychedelic shaman. And almost no other pop star who rose to fame in the 1960’s so thoroughly embodied that era’s sometimes fatal ethos of sex, drugs (including lots of alcohol) and rock ‘n’ roll.
Vedder inducted the Doors into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in 1993, when he also joined the band’s three surviving members to sing Morrison’s parts on Break On Through and Roadhouse Blues.
“I was letting the music take me,” Vedder said after his performance. “It was more about how my heart sounds than how my voice sounds.”<br>
Another Doors fan, Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan, cities the band as a major influence on his group’s 1991 debut album, Gish.”<br>
“I think that they captured sort of a darkness that is timeless, and I think that’s why their music continues to attract new fans and go on,” Corgan said recently.
“The fact they were attracted to the blues and (German opera and cabaret composer) Kurt Weill says a lot about where they were coming from. The Doors had their foot firmly stuck in the ground of tradition – not in a boring sense, but in a sense of soul and music’s representation of that.”<br>
“And there’s no killing the music. Simply put, their music has the timelessness of the blues. And the great thing about the Doors is that, while a lot of people at times considered them a bad teeny-bopper band, they are still popular.”<br>
Responding to Corgan, Manzarek said, “I think what Billy is talking about is the general perception musicians have today.”<br>
Does such a perception overlook other facets of Doors’ appeal?
“Well, what’s lost is the multi layered art of Jim Morrsion and the joy of the musicians, not just the darkness,” said Manzarek, who looks a decade or two younger than his 65 years.
“I mean, I’m not exactly sure how you can listen to Light My Fire and call it a dark song, other than the line; Our love becomes a funeral pyre. You see, the idea of death always accompanies a Doors song. It was just the nature of the times, and I think it was certainly inspired by the ingestion of certain psychedelic substances, which opened the doors of perception and (provided) you a glimpse of the eternal nature of life. And once you have seen the eternal, you know that death is always with you.”<br>
The Doors’ music blended rock, blues, pop, flamenco, Latin and more. But the band’s biggest inspiration was jazz. Witness the band’s penchant for extended improvisation and its use of the Miles Davis classic Milestones in the Doors’ Wild Child and Thelonious Monk’s Straight No Chaser in We Could Be So Good Together.
“The improvisation was virtually the main point of the Doors, the improvisation within the compositions,” says Manzarek. “And that, the Doors were like any jazz group, except we couldn’t play as well. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was wark!”<br>
And what about the obvious influence of jazz star Chet Baker on the ballad singing style of Morrison, who was the son of a US Naval Officer and a one time Coronado resident?
“I always though of us as an extension of Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan and that whole West Coast cool (-jazz) thing, and as the Doors being the Modern jazz Quartet of rock, if I may be so pompous. And we took this cool jazz thing and added a Latin thing to it, because we were in Southern California,” Manzarek said.
He and Morrison both earned degrees from UCLA. The keyboardist is now completing work on his directorial debut, and independent feature named after the Doors song Love Her Madly. He believes Morrison would share his excitement about Celebration of the Lizard, which he and Joel Lipman, the musical’s creator and writer, spent the last decade getting off the ground.
“The Doors had always talked about theatrical pieces, mixed media presentations, the magic theatre, if you will,” said Manzarek, who dismisses Oliver Stone’s 1991 film. The Doors as “a complete travesty.”<br>
Source: www.sandiegocitysearch .com/E/G/SANCA/0000/13/92